'The Company of Wolves' is an extraordinary dream-like series of set-pieces crammed with haunting detail and imagery. Young crimson-lipped Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson, impressive here and yet this is one of only a handful of film credits) sleeps - or sulks, as her spoilt sister Alice (Georgie Slow) would have it -in a glorious but ramshackle mansion that appears to get more untended the closer we get to her bedroom. She dreams of her precocious sister running through a haunted forest, fighting off giant teddy-bears, doll-houses and sinister grandfather clocks. It is a heady nightmare, with Rosaleen's disturbed sleep 'watched' by a Mrs Tiggy-Winkle doll strongly reminiscent of her eccentric granny, whom we meet later. Wolves are, of course, prevalent in her dream, just as they are throughout the film.Further into reverie we go, with mourners at the picturesque village burying Alice, with others played by such luminaries as Brian Glover, Graham Crowden, Stephen Rea, David Warner and magnificently eccentric singer/songwriter Daniella Dax as an unnamed wolf-girl."Once you stray from the path, you're lost entirely," warns Granny (top-billed Angela Lansbury). And that seems to be the metaphor for the film, which appears to be staged for the most part via tremendous studio sets. I mention this because such an arrangement allows for the world in which we inhabit to be entirely controlled by the film-makers - a village straight out of fairy-tale, a snowy-landscape made from every Christmas nightmare, and an autumnal air of folk-horror. Granny's stories/warnings permeate the narrative - Stephen Rea's travelling man marries Kathryn Podgson's young bride but disappears, only to return years later as a werewolf. In a second cautionary tale, the Devil (Terence Stamp) offers a young man a lethal potion. The third features a heavily pregnant enchantress 'done a terrible wrong' who arrives at (the child's father) an aristocrat's wedding party and transforms everyone into wolves. The final tale features a she-wolf (Dax), who ascends from 'the world below to the world above' meaning no harm, yet is shot by ignorant villagers.The stories are potent, haunting, mesmerising. The effects and transformations are excellent (particularly Rea's character - his werewolf alter-ego is beheaded, which lands in a vat of milk, only to surface as his human head once more) and the atmosphere absorbing. But what does it all mean? "(Men) are as nice as pie until they've had their way with you; once the bloom is gone, the Devil comes out," warns Granny. So, anti-men then? A coming of age parable? Certainly the Hammer-style horror-trappings and Red Riding Hood motifs seem only a convincing canvas on which to broadcast other things - a fear of adulthood, perhaps? Or maybe, given her ultimate fate, Granny's warnings are proven to be worthless? Whatever, Angela Carter and Neil Jordan's screenplay is an unspecific nightmare world of mindfulness and possibilities and remains not only one of the most original takes on the werewolf myth, but one of the most artistically successful too. Wonderful and extraordinary. An adult fairy-tale indeed.

I remember the first time around I was around 10-11 years old when I saw this movie. A movie about Red Riding Hood cool I loved fairy tales and for reason I don't know that was my favorite and still is one of my favorites. Of course I didn't expect it to be a horror version. Still I was intrigued and loved it. Still love it now.I am though no fan of werewolf movies (even though I do think the original Wolf Man was really good) and I'm not so keen on movies with much symbolism (and no particular fan of vampires either, for some reason there always seems to be competition between the 2). And yet the movie is full of it. The story is so simple, actually there is no real story. It's 13 year old Rosaleen dreaming about being Red Riding Hood and everything that happens in that dream is how she is slowly hitting puberty.The symbolism well I don't understand all of it (and had to look up what some meant) but yeah we have young romance. A boy her age (he is never named) is fancying Rosaleen but Rosaleen finds him silly (I remember how girls that age rather wanted an older boy as the boys their age they found too childish). Other recognizable stuff is granny's don't stray away from the path or the wild animals will get you. Of course not the animals are the danger but a werewolf is and that stands for the man seeking for innocent girl waiting for her in the bushes hoping to deflower her. Never trust a man whose two eyebrows meet. Funny thing we had a teacher who did have that. He did have two faces nice to the outer world and great in organization but he did not shy away from stealing if he could. Coincidence of course but still weird. Rosaleen finding some eggs in a bird's nest which hatch some kind of baby statues. I have read that symbolized her first menstruation (very original I must say). Throwing of her red hood I would think saying goodbye to her childhood and now making her own choices.The stories that grandmother tells sometimes quite silly, I think are another high point of the movie. The first one about the woman marrying a wolf man, the betrayed woman who invades the wedding of the man impregnating her, the she-wolf and the priest all of them actually do mean something and could make for an interesting longer story. Only the boy meets devil story I found a bit out of place also because it does have a car which didn't exist back in those days.Setting is awesome, the woods and its houses open place with a well. It all fits really well with the time and the famous fairy tale. A few special effects were really good. The movie also has some great transformations from man to werewolf (just as good I think as in An American werewolf in London) and of course there was the porcelain head of grandma being shattered (instead of eating her up). The toys in Rosaleen's room you can see them at various moments in her dream, the dolls and the doll house. And last but not least the various references to other fairy tales such as the apple, the toad and the gingerbread.Of course I had not paid attention to all those details the first time around and little did I know as a child. Now watching it looking closely into it despite its simple story (I am a story person) I get so much out of it is one of my favorite movies (top 10 for sure) and probably always will be.

A teenage girl (Sarah Patterson) in a country manor falls asleep while reading a magazine and she has a disturbing dream involving wolves which appears to take place in the woods visible from her bedroom window.How is it that after so many years as a horror fan, this title has escaped me? I may have vaguely heard of it, but certainly never saw it or had any reason to seek it out. Gee, I wish I had known about this much sooner.While the narrative is not very straightforward, and at times a bit confusing with its story-within-a-story structure, it is such a great blend of horror and fantasy. Horror fans get the werewolf, the gore effects, and some really cool transformation scenes. Fantasy folks get vibrant colors (especially red), and very dreamlike atmosphere.David Warner and Terence Stamp both have smaller roles, but add a bit to the picture that only they can. Angela Lansbury has a bit bigger role, though it is not one of her more flattering.As far as the so-called "wolf cycle" of the early 1980s goes, this has to be among the top three released at the time, perhaps second only to "An American Werewolf in London". Truly art in motion.

This appropriately moody looking film from co-writer / director Neil Jordan is good entertainment, a combination of horror and fairy tale that plays up the sexual angle in its exploration of the werewolf myth. It's true enough that the film is murky, but that fits the material; Jordan avoids a lot of bright colours and his crew give this an excellent period feel. (This only helps to make the red shawl worn by our heroine to really stand out.) The acting is solid, and overall "The Company of Wolves" benefits from its theme of there being more to "wolves" than meets the eye. Of course, this also ties into the time honoured idea of the beast inside man.The film encompasses several tales, all of them either told by kindly Granny (Angela Lansbury) or her granddaughter Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson), and supposedly all of them are contained within Rosaleens' dreams. They range from a groom (Stephen Rea) having a surprise in store for his new bride (Kathryn Pogson) to a young man receiving some sort of magical potion from a stranger (Terence Stamp, in an uncredited cameo) to a village that traps a wolf whose paw transforms into a human hand.Enhanced by Bryan Loftus's lighting and the music of George Fenton, "The Company of Wolves" is deliberately paced but full of atmosphere; one does feel like they are being transported to another time and place. It's also full of creepy imagery, and Christopher Tucker contributes makeup and transformation effects that may not quite measure up to what Rick Baker and Rob Bottin devised for their respective werewolf classics ("An American Werewolf in London", "The Howling"), but are striking nevertheless. The dialogue created by Angela Carter has a very literate quality. The cast - ever delightful Lansbury, Rea, David Warner, Graham Crowden, Brian Glover, Danielle Dax, Jim Carter - does creditable work, with young Patterson convincingly essaying an essential innocence.This film remains somewhat forgotten today, having come in the wake of those aforementioned werewolf pictures, so for lovers of the sub genre, it should be worth their while to discover it.Seven out of 10.